


Dead Man's Switch

by MarvelousMusings



Category: Black Panther (2018), Captain America (Movies), Winter Soldier (Comics)
Genre: F/M, Graphic Violence, Hydra (Marvel), Involuntary Drugging, Kidnapping, May Writing Challenge, winterprincess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-07
Updated: 2020-05-07
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:34:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,487
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24052165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MarvelousMusings/pseuds/MarvelousMusings
Summary: This drabble was created for the May Writing Challenge!Day #3: "Stop lying to me!"
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Shuri
Comments: 7
Kudos: 21
Collections: May Writing Challenge





	Dead Man's Switch

**Author's Note:**

> This certainly went off the rails just a touch. It was only supposed to be like 500 words, but then I got inspired. As is life. I don't really know if I'm all that good at writing action and suspense, but boy do I enjoy it. I hope you enjoy this as well. Leave comments below and spur me on! XD

He had left Wakanda for New York six weeks prior when Sam had mentioned the new Avengers initiative. Shuri had encouraged it, though admittedly she hadn’t been pleased with having do the weekly back-and-forth for visits – the most previous of which had ended in complete disaster.

Neither had seen it coming when Bucky had been stuck with a syringe, collapsing to the ground. And he hadn’t been able to do anything but watch, stuck paralyzed as Shuri was scooped off of her feet in broad daylight and thrown into the back of a black van. Bucky only managed a brief glimpse of the getaway driver before the full effects of the drug had overtaken him and he fell unconscious.

When he finally came to, it was under the sterile, white light of the hospital bay.

“What the hell happened?” he asked, pushing himself to sitting as he glanced to the only other face in the room. She was not pleased. “How long was I out?”

“I was hoping you could answer that first question for _me,_ ” Sharon Carter said, her arms crossed, “We had to transport you here from the Mt. Sinai psychiatric center after you were brought there for suspected drug abuse. Care to explain?”

“ _Drug abuse. No,_ no. I wasn’t...I didn’t-”

“I need you to tell me why you were there and _why_ we found so much Carfentanil in your system.”

“I was...with a friend.” He huffed out a sigh. Bucky had promised Shuri that their relationship would be a quiet one – especially with them on different continents and only able to sneak these moments together. And telling the director of the Avengers Initiative about their escapades was about the farthest thing from _low profile_ he could possibly think of.

“Do better.”

With a shake of his head, Bucky let out an exasperated sigh, “I was with the Princess.”

Sharon’s expression dropped then, confusion overtaking her. Realization seemed to dawn as she asked, “Do you know where you are, Barnes?”

“New York. Avengers HQ,” he said, concern beginning to mount, “Sharon...where...is she here? Shuri, I mean.”

“There were at least a dozen reports of the _White Wolf_ wandering Coney Island.”

“Well...yeah. Shuri came in from Philadelphia on her way back to Wakanda so we could spend a couple of days...and I brought her to Coney,” he explained, his skin beginning to heat, embarrassment and worry overtaking him in equal measure, “ _Please tell me she’s here._ ”

Sharon was quite the same, her lips pursed tightly as she took a seat by his bedside. “The reports included park guests who noticed you ranting unintelligibly. Batting away things that weren’t there.” she said, her expression softening at his obvious mounting panic, “Buck, she wasn’t with you.”

He heaved himself from the bed then, pacing the room with his hands shielding his eyes from the blinding fluorescent light. Bucky racked his brain for anything. Any inkling. But he continued to come up blank. The thought of losing time caused him to break out into a cold sweat. He hadn’t been _unaware_ of himself since his time as the Winter Soldier.

“Hey,” Sharon said, darting to her feet and following him as he began to sway, dizzied by the effects of coming down from the heavy drug, “We’ll put out some feelers, see if we can’t get eyes on her. It’ll be okay.”

Snippets were coming back to him as he continued his rounds of the room. Shuri. A hooded man. A black van.

“ _Fuck,_ ” he snapped, heaving his vibranium fist clear through the wall in his fury, “She was _taken._ They drugged me, snatched her, and fuckin’ ran.” he whirled around to face his counterpart, face pale, “Sharon, we’ve got to find her. There’s no telling what they could want from her.”

She gave him a sad look, shaking her head, “You saw these men? Did you get a good look at them – enough to give a description to a sketch artist? Did you...get the license plate?”

“ _No!_ No, I was too…whatever they gave me...I was so out of it. I only saw the man. There must have been one driving and another waiting nearby to grab and run. And...they left in a black van.”

“That’s not - okay,” Sharon nodded, a thought clicking into place, “You wait right here. I’m going to be right back.”

And when she returned it was with Wanda in tow.

Bucky had never been very at ease around the girl. If he was honest, her powers scared him. He’d spent so long under mind control, the thought of having somebody else poking around in his brain didn’t feel all that great.

“I already told you everything I know,” he said, shuffling his feet nervously, “I really don’t think-”

“I know you told me everything you _think_ you know,” Sharon began, easing Wanda forward, “but your brain could still be foggy from the drugs. She may be able to find something that you didn’t even realize you’d noticed in the first place.”

He nodded, though everything screamed for him to _run._

Wanda reached out for him, her fingers only making contact with temples for a moment before her eyes shot open again and she was darting from the room with Bucky and Sharon tight on her heels. “I know him,” Wanda explained as she charged out onto the foyer and across to where the offices were located, “the van driver. He was there when Pietro and I-”

“He’s HYDRA?” Sharon confirmed.

“Yes, but I can’t remember his _name,_ ” she groaned, pushing the door to Sharon’s office wide.

All three rushed inside and Sharon logged in quickly to the national database of known HYDRA operatives. “You’ll recognize his face when you see it?”

“Yes, I think so.”

In the end, HYDRA henchman Harold Gerwig had not been hard to track down. After doing the “drop” as he’d referred to it in the early stages of interrogation, he’d gone to hide in a safe house – a drug den that they’d thought to be secure, though it had been infiltrated by undercover cops in the months prior. One contact from Sharon and they’d gotten the location and were breaking down the door.

It had been a grueling few hours. Harold hadn’t given up any information, jabbering on senselessly about _noble purposes_ and _Hive._

Bucky, Sam, and Wanda were all congregated outside of the interrogation room when Sharon finally stepped out, running her hands over her face and letting out a tired groan. “He’s not giving me anything.”

“You could let me at him. I bet I could make him talk,” Bucky gritted out, his jaw clenched tightly as he glared in at the man who sat unfazed at the aluminum table.

“No.”

“Sharon-”

“She’s right,” Sam interjected, “You’re wound so tight right now, you’ll kill him if he looks at you sideways. _Then_ we’re out of leads and no closer to finding Shuri."

The foursome stood in silence, glaring in through the glass for another moment before Bucky slapped his knees and heaved himself to his feet, “Nah, I don’t think that’ll happen,” he grunted as he shouldered past Sharon, ignoring her direction to _stand down. “_ Hey, pal, _”_ her glowered as he flung the interrogation room door open. Gerwig’s eyes caught his, a flash of recognition there, before jetting back down to the table in front of him. “You didn’t want to deal with the _good cop?_ That’s fine. Now you get me.”

He rounded the table, glaring down at the man for a split second before sending the table flying and jerking him upward by the throat. In a flurried scramble of limbs, Bucky had Gerwig against the back wall, vibranium forearm digging dangerously into his windpipe. “I’m going to let up and when I do, you’re going to tell _where she is_ and _why your people have her_ _._ _Talk fast._ ”

An incremental decrease in pressure had the man gasping for air. “I assure you she is safe. The Princess is doing the _most noble work-_ ”

“ _Safe?_ ” he bellowed, as the door behind them flew open once again and the rest of his team charged in after him. It was going to take far more than three people to restrain him, though, “ **Stop lying to me.** Cut the shit. _Tell me_ where she was taken or _so help me-_ ”

The man gagged hard as the pressure on his throat increased.

It took the strength of all three of his teammates to prevent Bucky from slamming Gerwig clear through the wall. The man began to shake as his air supply ran stale. Sharon and Sam yanked hard at Bucky’s vibranium arm while Wanda fought her way between them, gripping the man’s head between her palms. It took a great deal of effort to fight through Gerwig’s dominating thought of _Breathe! Breathe! Breathe!_ but once she’d managed, she could see it – the location – clearly in his mind’s eye.

“There’s a barge,” she murmured, turning her full attention to Gerwig, “ _Answer._ The barge on the Hudson. That’s where they are?”

His infinitesimal nod was enough to bring Bucky back to reality. With an infuriated grunt, he released the man, allowing himself to be dragged back by Sharon and Sam as Gerwig slumped to the floor coughing and spluttering.

“The chopper’s up top. You three suit up and go.”

“Are you coming?”

“No, I’ve got to transfer _this one_ to the Raft,” Sharon said, hoisting Gerwig up by the handcuffs and marching him from the room.

They had expected an army, at least a decent fight. But what they found once they’d entered the barge was something far worse. Down in the bowels of the boat, down a maze of a pathway, they’d found only two people – one man, lazing against a row of hard drives. And Shuri, typing away frantically as her eyes darted over a wall of screens, full of codes and algorithms that none of her rescuers could make heads of tails of. She froze on the spot, letting out a relieved sob at the sight of her three saviors.

“Keep _going,”_ the man across from them snapped, directing Shuri bodily back to her work. She let out the tiniest cry as he did so. “Lay down your weapons, gentlemen,” the man across groaned, as he set a lazy pace across the room.

“Shuri, _stop_ what you’re doing,” Bucky called as Wanda and Sam stood firm in front of her captor.

“No, _no. I can’t._ I can’t stop _,_ ” she choked out, tears streaming down her face as she typed away with alarming speed. Upon closer inspection Bucky could just make out the vest – the _bomb_ vest – in which she was secured.

“She’s right. Dead man’s switch,” he said, holding up the detonator held tightly in his hand, “If she stops before she’s successfully animated _Hive –_ if any of you try to _stop_ her – if you try to take _me out..._ I blow us all to kingdom come.”

“Noted.” Sam huffed. And in the next moment, Redwing was released along with a hail of bullets.

Wanda rushed forward before the dead man even hit the ground. A rush of energy kept his thumb in place over the detonation button as he crumpled.

Bucky scrambled toward Shuri along with Sam, “Let’s get this off of you,” he whispered, his heart clenching along with his gut as she shrugged him off, her eyes glued to her screens.

“I can’t stop. He’ll kill us all. I can’t-”

“No. He won’t,” Bucky insisted, covering her hands with his own and lifting them from the keyboard. Her chest heaved as she peered up at him through watery eyes, “See?” The smile that he forced onto his face, the calm voice, they were an act entirely for her. All he really wanted to do was scream. Punch a wall. Find anyone who had played a hand in breaking _his_ Shuri in this way and make them pay.

But that would be for another day.

“ _Hurry, please,_ ” Wanda snapped, her face scrunched from the exertion of holding a dead man in place. Bucky had to get back to the task at hand.

“Okay, Sugar; just look at me. I’m going to get this off you.”

She nodded, stiff as a board as Bucky leaned in and unclipped one side of the vest, shimmying it over her head and off the next arm in one slow and smooth motion. They let out the breaths they’d both been holding onto in tandem as Bucky quickly handed the vest off to Sam.

“Get that thing as far away from the city as you can. Radio when it’s safe to detonate.”

And with that, Sam spread his wings and took off through the hole that Redwing had cleared in the ceiling.

As soon as the vest was out of view, Shuri fell to hands and knees, trying and failing to get a full breath as she broke down completely. He bent down alongside her, letting her cling to him as she shook. “You’re safe,” he murmured into her hair as she rested limply against his frame.

In the peripheral he could hear Sam’s voice through the comms. _All clear, Wanda. Let ‘er rip._ Then Wanda releasing her hold on the dead man with a grunt and a distant blast.

It was over.

“You alright?” Bucky called over to Wanda as he saddled Shuri’s weight and heaved her into the air, carrying her the length of the room.

“Yeah, alright,” Wanda called back, following as they headed back above deck, leaving the scene as they’d left it.

Sam rejoined them as they walked back up the dock to where they’d left the chopper. “We’d better call this in.”

“You’d better,” Bucky agreed, setting Shuri on her own two feet once they’d made it back to dry land, “Do me a favor when Sharon gets here; tell her I’m not sure when I’ll be back.”

“What do you mean?”

“I _mean,_ I’m taking Shuri back to Wakanda and I may...stay a while.”

“You mean a while or do you mean _for good?_ ” Sam asked pointedly.

“I haven’t decided yet.”

“Well...we’re going to need her to stay at least for a few days to deprogram _Hive-_ ”

Bucky shook his head, shooting his thumb over his shoulder, “You’ve got a _very_ smart green guy about thirty blocks that way that I’m sure would be happy to help. We’re going home.”

_Home._

He’d never really considered any particular place to be _home_ in the few years since he'd broken out of HYDRA's grasp. Not even Wakanda. But perhaps home wasn’t a _place,_ but a person. Shuri was _his home,_ he realized. And in that moment, he knew he'd never willingly part from her again. He'd live by her side in Wakanda forever, under that dome where they'd be safe from everything and everyone.


End file.
